lets just hope Milla and Richard don't have a son. After all would you want that conversation.... "oh, by the way son you can never, never, I can't stress this enough, ever have unprotected sex.""why, Dad?""well, um... you would probably kill your partner"

lets just hope Milla and Richard don't have a son. After all would you want that conversation.... "oh, by the way son you can never, never, I can't stress this enough, ever have unprotected sex.""why, Dad?""well, um... you would probably kill your partner"

That would put a damper on the act, now wouldn't it?

But that would make sequel more interesting. Any love would be star crossed and any true expression of that love can lead to assisted suicide.....or eternal life. How many people will their son witness prove their love for him courting death in his arms only to be swept away in death's embrace?

That sort of situation either makes for an iron willed abstainer or leads to some sort of sadism. Sadism, where sexual pleasure becomes strongly associated with a horrifically painful death.

Another problem with curing via symbiote is that it may not be able to differentiate between the person and the disease. It needs to have a definition of 'normal' to prevent abnormal, but if someone is already sick with a terminal infection or cancer then how would a newly introduced symbiote know what to fight? It's ability to operate within a genome seems restricted to handling telomere shortening and other aging effects as damage.

In contrast, neural whip damage is just damage. You're fine genetically. You're just dying. If you assume symbiotes don't enjoy being stored outside their host for long then you're left with a scenario where symbiote treatment is only viable for people who are near a Thuselah, and have trauma absolutely guaranteed to kill them, but they aren't dead yet.

Basically, I think MWW already thought of all this and closed off any obvious exploits.

Peter Drake wrote:Another problem with curing via symbiote is that it may not be able to differentiate between the person and the disease. It needs to have a definition of 'normal' to prevent abnormal, but if someone is already sick with a terminal infection or cancer then how would a newly introduced symbiote know what to fight? It's ability to operate within a genome seems restricted to handling telomere shortening and other aging effects as damage.

In contrast, neural whip damage is just damage. You're fine genetically. You're just dying. If you assume symbiotes don't enjoy being stored outside their host for long then you're left with a scenario where symbiote treatment is only viable for people who are near a Thuselah, and have trauma absolutely guaranteed to kill them, but they aren't dead yet.

Basically, I think MWW already thought of all this and closed off any obvious exploits.

Very good points. I think case closed for this one.

The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln

biochem wrote:I tend to prefer a sequel. With a prequel I already know how it is going to turn out, but with a sequel there are so many possibilities.

Actually, there are plans for both. Heck, there are plans for 2 sequels to In Fury Born, for that matter. Oh, and also at least 1 sequel and a couple of "in the midst of things" prequels for The Excalibur Option. Ummmm, and now that I think about it, there are the two Dahak sequels I have plotted out. . . .

The problem, of course, being that there is only one of me, I am mortal, and I am also a father with 3 children between the ages of 11 & 12m plus a wife who is going to have her 4th spinal surgery in 18 months on February 7th.

Oh, and I have a few other books I'm committed to write, too.

Granted this is years and years old post (plus you know being back up vs various deadlines on other things etc) Might this be (and the Fury universe too) perfect to bring in other writers on like you did with the Hells Gates books. i could see certain established writers working well with this as a collaboration or a straight pass off to play in the universe. Or a great place for baen to bring you in to teach a new author

Garth 2 wrote:lets just hope Milla and Richard don't have a son. After all would you want that conversation.... "oh, by the way son you can never, never, I can't stress this enough, ever have unprotected sex.""why, Dad?""well, um... you would probably kill your partner"

Pondering on this more and more lately... presuming Milla and Dick have a daughter first, and then however much later on have a son as the next child.

Imagine how that conversation's going to go. Not just about never, ever having unprotected sex but the "birds and the bees" discussion. There would only be two other people he could ever produce offspring with, and he'd be 100% directly related to both of them.

And off-hand I think Thuselah's are technically immortal, they'll never die to age, so the first son would be doomed to a life of never being able to have a child of his own. Surrounded by eventually hundreds, and thousands of nieces, and grand-nieces, and great-grands, and so on and so forth.

That's not quite my ultimate definition of hell, but I can't really picture many more, where eventually your first question in a club has to be "I need to know who your parents are!" and not "fancy a drink?"

biochem wrote:I tend to prefer a sequel. With a prequel I already know how it is going to turn out, but with a sequel there are so many possibilities.

Actually, there are plans for both. Heck, there are plans for 2 sequels to In Fury Born, for that matter. Oh, and also at least 1 sequel and a couple of "in the midst of things" prequels for The Excalibur Option. Ummmm, and now that I think about it, there are the two Dahak sequels I have plotted out. . . .

The problem, of course, being that there is only one of me, I am mortal, and I am also a father with 3 children between the ages of 11 & 12m plus a wife who is going to have her 4th spinal surgery in 18 months on February 7th.

Oh, and I have a few other books I'm committed to write, too.

So David, since there is only one of you, how would one go about submitting a sequel plot for the Excalibur story line? It seems that you could find time to edit than to write and I have several thousand words (so far) that I have written for my own entertainment which I think you migh find usable.

Garth 2 wrote:lets just hope Milla and Richard don't have a son. After all would you want that conversation.... "oh, by the way son you can never, never, I can't stress this enough, ever have unprotected sex.""why, Dad?""well, um... you would probably kill your partner"

Pondering on this more and more lately... presuming Milla and Dick have a daughter first, and then however much later on have a son as the next child.

Imagine how that conversation's going to go. Not just about never, ever having unprotected sex but the "birds and the bees" discussion. There would only be two other people he could ever produce offspring with, and he'd be 100% directly related to both of them.

And off-hand I think Thuselah's are technically immortal, they'll never die to age, so the first son would be doomed to a life of never being able to have a child of his own. Surrounded by eventually hundreds, and thousands of nieces, and grand-nieces, and great-grands, and so on and so forth.

That's not quite my ultimate definition of hell, but I can't really picture many more, where eventually your first question in a club has to be "I need to know who your parents are!" and not "fancy a drink?"

Nah, by the time you hit Grand-Niece there should be enough genetic variation for a sexual relationship to be viable. Would be a bit...icky though.

That of course, presupposes that they don't come up with a way to pass their blood off as a very special miracle cure - the massive chance of death vs. the tiny chance of life. Although finding out who is a recipient would be tricky...

Garth 2 wrote:lets just hope Milla and Richard don't have a son. After all would you want that conversation.... "oh, by the way son you can never, never, I can't stress this enough, ever have unprotected sex.""why, Dad?""well, um... you would probably kill your partner"

Pondering on this more and more lately... presuming Milla and Dick have a daughter first, and then however much later on have a son as the next child.

Imagine how that conversation's going to go. Not just about never, ever having unprotected sex but the "birds and the bees" discussion. There would only be two other people he could ever produce offspring with, and he'd be 100% directly related to both of them.

And off-hand I think Thuselah's are technically immortal, they'll never die to age, so the first son would be doomed to a life of never being able to have a child of his own. Surrounded by eventually hundreds, and thousands of nieces, and grand-nieces, and great-grands, and so on and so forth.

That's not quite my ultimate definition of hell, but I can't really picture many more, where eventually your first question in a club has to be "I need to know who your parents are!" and not "fancy a drink?"

In time I think there will be Thuselah's that aren't related to them. At the end of the story Milla took a desperate gamble to save Dick--why hasn't that happened billions of times before??

It's not going to be of much value on something that kills fast but I think there would be a lot of people dying of something slow that would take the chance.

Garth 2 wrote:lets just hope Milla and Richard don't have a son. After all would you want that conversation.... "oh, by the way son you can never, never, I can't stress this enough, ever have unprotected sex.""why, Dad?""well, um... you would probably kill your partner"

99% percent chance, but I think that might only apply if she carries the baby to term, or attempts to, immediate abortion might increase chances.

What is more likely to cause problems is the inability to get blow jobs.